Members' feedback for BALI's COVID-19 clinics
On Thursday 2 and Friday 3 April, the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) held four COVID-19 webinar clinics for members focusing on four key areas of support; compliance, insurance, legal and HR. Along with those members that joined in live, and those that have since watched the on-demand recordings, feedback received has been extremely positive.
Following the clinics, BALI issued out a short survey and members have since responded and shared their views with the association. The most popular clinic was HR in terms of the total number attending live on the day, but the feedback from the survey indicated that members found all four webinars to be useful in providing support for their business.
Members who responded to the survey, including designers, contractors and suppliers, rated the overall quality of the webinars as 80%, and the quality of the presenters at 83%.
Alfie Bines of Alfie Bines Gardens said:
Very useful taking into consideration that definitive answers to some questions are not possible. Also reassuring to hear that members have shared concerns.
Philip Samways of Katsura Gardens commented:
Your advice has all been incredibly helpful and clear. Thanks.
Laurence Upcott of Whiting Landscape said:
The webinars were useful and thanks for covering my question. If we need any further advice on our contractual positions, we will certainly make contact with BALI.
Thomas Owen from Van den Berk said:
I think the nature of this pandemic is something that is completely new to us all and so there is considerable thought necessary to cover all aspects of law, insurance and compliance etc. This said…all the speakers were very concise and clear. It would be interesting to run the same webinars in another week or two to see if legislation is clearer.
Pete Jones of Land Design Partnership followed by saying:
On the whole, the topics were great, and those speaking knew their stuff. In my opinion, the HR topic was difficult to follow due to the nature of the unprecedented situation and the lack of clarity from the government. The legal expert was very knowledgeable, but I felt there wasn’t much in the way of new information. The insurance webinar was not particularly helpful for me or my business, but it was inevitable given the circumstances around the lack of cover that’s available for landscaping professionals. The compliance webinar, for me, was the most useful. Whilst we have most of the bases covered as a business, the practical discussions from Owen Baker and Richard Gardiner meant that it had a day to day grounding, rather than a theoretical one.
When asked whether members would like BALI to host further webinar clinics, 88% said yes compared to 12% who said no. For those members that did want to see more online content, their suggestions ranged from continuing with compliance to cutting costs and cash flow, keeping abreast of Government changes, further sessions on HR and preparing businesses for the inevitable post-pandemic scenario.
The next BALI webinar is scheduled for Tuesday 14 April, featuring guest presenter and BALI Technical Officer (Quality Assurance) Richard Gardiner, who will be talking CDM. Bookings are open now.
Following this, BALI is hosting a plant health webinar with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on Tuesday 21 April which has already received over 65 registrations from organisations including the National Trust and Forestry Commission, as well as several universities and local authorities. You can book a place for free here.
BALI has also subsidised the cost of several digital marketing webinars that are running throughout April, May and June, featuring topics such as SEO, content marketing, LinkedIn, Google Analytics and much more. These are free and exclusive for BALI members and bookings are open now.